The Apocalypse

I've been remiss in my blogging duties. All I can say is it's been a heckuva month. End of school, parental visit, launching a grog, turned in a book, plotting another series...I've been *busy*.

My friend Martha believes in being prepared and her comments a few weeks ago totally spurred me to take action. I started my apocalypse garden. Prior to this awakening, I had a couple of tomato plants in a pot and some herbs by the back door (which if I don't say so myself, for a plant killer are looking pretty good) I've discovered a secret--fertilizing them regularly makes a really big difference. This isn't to say that I didn't fertilize before but clearly I didn't fertilize enough. Now look at these tomatoes!



So this past weekend we (and I use the term 'we' loosely, I picked the stuff out, figured the dimensions, and how to construct then left the actual construction to the husband) built a 3 x 3 planter box. Then today I forced, er, asked the kids to go with me to pick out food plants. We planted green beans, lemon cucumber, zucchini, cherry tomatoes (someone stuck those in the cart when I wasn't looking), green bell pepper, and cantaloupe. And look how great it looks.




Now I just have to convince the family that they will love eating everything in that box. And since I'm prepared for the Apocalypse, I can get back to writing...happy Summer!

Launching a Grog

So today we launch our grog: The Pens Fatales. http://www.pensfatales.com

This has been a labor of love from start to finish (yeah, cliche I know). We have had so much fun planning and discussing what we do and don't want, how we want to structure, and amazingly we have agreed on most things without much debate. We've found connections among group members that we had no idea existed three months ago.

When we started, we were eight writers in the romance and mystery genres with a common friend. With inspiration from Maya Banks (www.writemindedblog.com), we decided to make the leap.

Writing is so solitary. Even if you have critique groups and readers and chapters, in the end, the work is accomplished alone. So to have this more intimate outlet to develop friendships and forge connections that I believe will last a very long time, is a gift.

I consider myself very, very lucky. Happy Grog Launch to us!